Over A Billion Dollar Coins Sitting In Gov. Vaults.

SilverRoosevelt...


We don't give them to our grand-kids because we think they'll be worth a fortune, we do it because we don't see them very often, so we think we're giving them something unique (that's what grandparents do!), plus they're really neat looking, and there is the 'save your money' lessons for the youngest, as they would never spend such gems from the old folks.

Once in a while we get them at my store. I like to collect them, but I am also the only person who will pass them as change. People just accept it. I tell them 'here is your change. I wish my store ordered them. Where the goverment went wrong was having the dollar coins as an option. If they would have simply passed a law ceasing production of the one dollar bill. The one dollar bill is a misfit among bills with no effort - or need - to update its design.

This is a great topic and I agree with most of the responses. I guess we are all preaching to the choir here.

The one dollar bill has to go or the coin will never circulate. I think 1 billion coins in the vaults is enough to get started. The government doesn't have to withdraw the 1 dollar bill. Just stop making them and they will go away eventually. Americans aren't that different from the rest of the world. Everyone will adapt to the 1 dollar coins if they have to. I try to do my part by spending 1 dollar coins whenever I can. I still have never received one back in change yet.

I also think a 2 dollar coin and a 2 dollar bill at the same time is a good idea to start the ball rolling with higher denominations for coins. The 2 dollar bill could stay for 10 more years or so.

Let's try to get the word out. I predicted a few years ago that the U.S. would stop making 1 dollar bills in 2013. Let's see if I am right.

So my browser crashed and reloaded, and the YouTube dollar coin video started playing again. The background music is very nearly Alton Brown's "Good Eats" music.

SilverRoosevelt's comments about the difficulty getting them out are true, but when they are getting them from every store and in quantity, and they can't get dollar notes their attitudes will change. It may take a few months and there will be griping but it will work. One of the reasons the 2000 promotion of the Sac dollar failed was that it was carried out by only one chain, Wal-mart, and it lasted only one month. During that month the public resisted them during the first week, during the next two they were considered to be something of a nolvelty. The fourth week they were becoming accepted, and the five week the promotion ended. Additional problems were that some cashiers wouldn't give out more than one coin even if the cusotmer wanted more, some cashier told people that they were special and would only be available for a month making people think they were going to be rare. During that one month Wal-mart introduced 95 million coins into circulation. Since then the Treasury has managed to introduce about six million coins a month into circulation. When the President dollars were introduced and they were discussing how to get them into circulation they said they wanted to make sure they weren't going to do another promotion like they did in 2000 because they didn't want another failure like the Wal-mart promotion. Failure? In one month Wal-Mert alone moved as many dollars as the Treasury did in 16 months.

When I was in Newport, RI last year on a day trip, an older couple came up to me and asked for change for their paper dollars to use the parking meter. I happened to be carrying some dollars with me and when I put one into the parking meter and the display read "1:00" the man remarked "So, you're taking a page from Canada?" I replied "Nah, we came out with small dollars first it's just that people don't really use them."

SilverRoosevelt: unfortunate Mass, or at least Boston, didn't take a page from Newport's playbook; a dollar meter could have made such a difference, and there are a lot, just in Boston proper...

'Boston's 108 multispace parking meters that regulate parking for over 800 on-street parking spaces already accept credit and debit cards, as well as dollar bills and quarters.'

'The remainder of the 7,057 single-space parking meters on Boston's streets will continue to only accept quarters during the pilot period.'